


Black and Blue

by DeathDirt



Series: I'm Only Human, After All: Roleswapped Reaper76 [1]
Category: overwatch
Genre: AU - Roleswap, Alcohol Abuse, Body Dysphoria, Brief Gore, M/M, PTSD, Reaper | Jack Morrison, Roleswap, Soldier: 76 | Gabriel Reyes, gore mentions, not the usual kind but yknow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-11
Updated: 2017-11-11
Packaged: 2019-01-31 22:15:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12691248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeathDirt/pseuds/DeathDirt
Summary: Gabriel Reyes, once the famed and lauded savior of the world, Strike Commander of Overwatch, now a simple vigilante known as Soldier: 76.Jack Morrison, the commander of Overwatch's black ops counterpart, Blackwatch, turned monster at the hands of Talon, but known to most simply as the Reaper, Talon's favorite dog.The world has used them both, wrung them out, and tossed them to the wayside.





	Black and Blue

**Author's Note:**

> This makes up for not updating my multichap fics right? Yeah I know it doesn't but I've kinda hit a wall. Have this instead XC I'm trying. 
> 
> Anyways, enjoy the first part of a bunch of roleswap. I enjoyed writing this, but I've not done roleswap before so I'm sorry if characterization is off.

Angela let out an inordinately loud groan at the sight before her. Gabriel, once again passed out drunk on one of the communal couches, as though he lived here and _hadn't_ told Winston in very explicit terms that he didn't care for Overwatch anymore. There had been loud cursing in both English and Spanish coming from this direction for a while, Angela just didn't want to think it was anyone but McCree, despite his current mission taking place in Taiwan. Her quiet steps are enough to wake the vigilante though. Gabriel bolts up from his position on the couch, panicked but not quite awake as his head is swinging back and forth in search of a threat. "Gabriel," The doctor mutters breathily, "What are you doing?" 

Gabe runs a hand over his face to try properly waking himself. Alcohol isn't as nice to him as it used to be, super soldier enhancements or no. _Getting tired, old man?_ The fact that it's not even his own voice in his head doesn't bother him the way it used to. Nor does the image of the cocky blonde recruit leaning on Angela's shoulder with an open cavity in place of his chest, pulsing organs within fighting to keep him alive. Because that worked, didn't it? 

Soldier: 76 blinks and the blonde is gone, back to empty space in his head. "Winston lets you stay from time to time because he has a mote of respect left for you," Angela continues, probably having been giving a lecture since waking him. "But you can't keep doing this to yourself." The doctor sighs, putting a hand on her forehead for a moment. "What happened?" She finally asks. Gabriel grabbed the visor from its place on the floor and fit it back over his face. The slight red haze over the room was comforting. "Reaper," is all he can manage without having a breakdown. Thankfully, Angela understands.

\------

Reaper gripped his biceps hard enough to draw blood. To his left, Moira gives him an almost motherly pat, as if to say "It'll all be over soon." Ha! Politicians never got done quick. Sitting in on UN meetings proved that well enough. "We must divert our resources to fueling the anti-omnic sentiments," one council member spewed. "No, you buffoon!" Another shouted in his aggravating posh accent, "We must destroy the Overwatch first!" If only Akande were here...

Reaper had some respect for him, sure, but that's not why he wanted the man here. Doomfist could put down any argument with less than a look, which was something desperately needed right now. All the yelling was getting overly repetitive; although, that was all political talk was anyway - repetitive, incoherent screaming matches to see who could be the most idiotic and simultaneously look the most glorified.

Moira pinned him with an odd look - her 'mad scientist vibe', as Sombra put it. "What?" He growls in answer. "You could always leave." Her almost sympathetic stare makes him do a double-take. Moira? Showing him some pity? "What world do I live in that you care enough to tell me that?" He growls back. The geneticist huffed and rolled her eyes. Using the Blackwatch Commander over Strike Commander hadn't exactly been her smartest idea. Even if Morrison was the one to ask her for the experiments in the first place, he wasn't exactly the best candidate for them. Maybe the Shimada boy would've been better. Lord knew he could use the regenerative properties of it.

"Because I know that you aren't very appreciative of politics, even if you navigate them rather well." Point made. Reaper glances to one side, then the other. The council is still going on, as it had been for a while, devolving as it usually did into a pointless splitting of opinions for the sake of it. As discreetly as a cloud of smoke could manage, Reaper slipped out of the room, moving through the cracks in the door frame to escape the oppressive atmosphere. Moira chuckled and shook her head as the council meeting wore on. Better she got him out sooner rather than later. There would be an uproar if he killed half the council.

Reaper slithered through this particular base, stationed in King's Row, hence the British idiots - Reaper can recall their prime minister going absolutely off the wall when Overwatch tried to deal with Null Sector, and has hated the Brits ever since, yes, including the Lena girl even if she was an absolutely _delightful_ heathen to drink with - finally stopping at the exit door. A few hours out of the stuffy building should help him feel a little less homocidal. In a soft cloud of black, the leather and Kevlar vanished, replaced with a tight grey compression shirt, black jeans, and the usual combat boots. Reluctantly, he reached up, unclasped the skullish mask, and pulled it away from his face.

Blonde hair stuck up in all directions since its owner had long since stopped trying to tame it. A pair of long diagonal scars marred his features, one pulling at his mouth, the other ripping across the center of his face. If it weren't for the black wisps of smoke waving off his body, he'd be considered attractive. Hell, some people might think him pretty even _with_ the nanite/dead man problem. One came to the front of his mind, but Jack quickly shoved it back down. Once he started thinking of _him_ , his mood would tank, and Jack would be back in Moira's lab being prodded like an ordinary lab rabbit. For now, he let the mask fade to smoke with the rest of his gear, then set off through the city to do...something. Probably just walk.

Everyone always teased him for being so "vanilla". Jesse would joke with him that white boys shouldn't wear black. On the rare occasion that Genji felt friendly, he'd poke fun by commenting that Jack was a better civilian than a black ops commander. Some days he could think about everything those two did and laugh. He still thinks of them like family. Jack's not sure if they notice, but he hasn't taken a killing blow against either of them, though the opportunity's been there on multiple encounters. Then there's the other days. Where he thinks about what happened, the last time Jesse saw him as Jack Morrison, the words he spit in his face because he was so fed up with what Jack had done. Where he thinks about Gabe. Not even the parts that hurt, just...Gabe. His chestnut-colored eyes, the way sweat rolled off him when they worked out together, how those thighs flexed when he ran. The look on his face as the building came apart around him. 

"Don't do this now, Morrison," he mutters to himself, "It's not like it'll all be better because you realize too little too late." Some days he likes to wish it did. But no. Talon owns his entire being. Overwatch is dead, for the most part. The world is going to shit. "Just keep moving. It's gotten you this far, more or less. What's the worst that could happen?" 

Jack hadn't heard the phrase "Be careful what you wish for" enough times then.

He's finding that the night's actually quite pleasant. It's England, so usually there's too much smog, there's too much crowd, but walking around in the dead of night makes it better, in a way. There's not as _much_ smog or crowd, which is actually to Reaper's liking because he hates both. Pollution, he's always hated that just because it's not healthy. Crowds? He's learned to hate them. Crowds are filled with _people_ , filled with _souls_ , and being near too many at once usually drives him mad. It's containable, just not ideal when it comes to infiltration. Hence why Reaper was considered more of a distractor than anything else. It hurt his pride; whatever it took, though, to see the world thrown into the pit of hell it deserved to go to, Jack would go right along with it.

At one turn, he reaches a dead-end. "Fucking kidding me," he mutters, turning to go back out. The alley's dark so he doesn't see the street rat until they run into each other. "Shit," Jack mutters, holding his temple. "Fuck, sorry," the other one apologizes. Jack's body goes still for a moment before he thinks to look up. For fuck's sake... Can't he at least go outside without being given a panic attack from someone supposed to be dead? Though to be fair, he should be pretty dead too, and yet here he is, albeit a monster in every sense of the word. Staring at the man who made and broke him in a span of... 

Damn it. He can't even remember _that_. 

Gabriel, for his part, is almost convinced that this is yet another hallucination. It wouldn't be the first time he bumped into someone, saw Jack, and then blinked just for the blonde figure to go away. So for a second he's stunned, waiting for the vision to pass. Except it doesn't. No, it just stays and stares at him, much as he does to it. Meaning this is probably the real thing. Should've guessed it sooner, really. Usually, his visions of Jack involved him being dismembered or bloodied or burned or otherwise disfigured to the point that he was unrecognizable. Not so...whole. And, frankly, beautiful. Yeah, this is the Jack who's been trying to kill him since they learned of each other's existence after the explosion at Zurich, but Jack's a pretty guy. Always has been.

Gabe knows that he's probably still looking pretty damn good too, especially given his age and health, but he can't look at himself anymore without having the distinct urge to throw up. Jack's always in his head. Right in front of him too. Still blonde, the bastard - no matter what, there's always been a bit of grey that dusts Gabriel's hair since taking up the position of Strike Commander - and he still looks like he did hopping out of SEP onto the first battleground in the crisis. Thick with muscle, full of energy, and...

Undeniably inhuman.

The smoke swirling off his bare skin attests to that much.

Jack abruptly turns his head away and suddenly Gabe realizes he's been staring the whole time. His pulse rifle is close, but he feels no urge to reach for it. Even if the gut feeling that Jack won't hurt him is wrong, he doesn't have much to live for anyway. "You usually wander in dark alleys when you're alone _chico lindo_?" The blonde cocks his head. He's pleasantly surprised that Gabe's first instinct is still witty banter instead of pulse rifle ammunition, though it doesn't show on his face. There's too much concentration on keeping it at least a little normal.

"Yeah. All the time," Jack quietly responds, still looking away and half-covering his face. He shouldn't be embarrassed of it, he knows it's damn near unfair. Gabe's standing in front of him, unmasked, scars crisscrossing over his face like the misplaced seams of an inexperienced toy maker. From both before and after Zurich. Jack thinks of his own reflection, and then is disgusted with himself. He was lucky to get away with what he did. The two scars were only there because he wanted them to be. Gabe was stuck with what he had. He let his hand down to look properly at Gabriel and - were his eyes going bad, or was the milky haze just Jack's imagination?

Gabe snorted at the blonde's momentary lapse. "You still with me, _Diablo_? Or are you still getting stuck up there like you used to?" Jack grumbled, swearing up and down to himself that he couldn't blush, no matter what the heat in his face said. It's not fair that Gabriel can still get under his skin so easily with a single comment. "I don't," he growled back, determined to keep this as unfriendly as possible. "Just thinking about the fastest way to kill you."

"At this range?" Damn near touching. "With your guns?" Deadly. "Come on, Jack. If you're gonna play coy, do it believably. How'd you ever make it in Blackwatch?" It's not said unkindly, which is strange because they haven't been on friendly terms for years. Any time they've been in close quarters before, it's been with the intent on both sides to kill or be killed since neither of them really have the will to live anyhow. It's odd, if Jack's honest with himself. This is how it went _before_. 

Jack would come back after a particularly tiring Blackwatch mission, rubbing at his eyes because of how bad he needed sleep, then just _happen_ upon a wandering Strike Commander Reyes, start with formal greetings, then let it devolve to witty banter, gentle teasing, and, more often than not, a long night of warming one bed with two bodies, in some way or another. 

But that's just it. That was _before_. Now, the most they could say to each other was "Target sighted" or "Dirty scumbag" or something equally as detached and hateful. So why was this happening? Jack shook his head in irritable silence. He shouldn't be thinking about the why of anything anymore. It's been too late to think about the question of "why?" for a while. "So what're you doing out here? Don't you have something better to do, saving the world and all?" Soldier huffs, unamused. Saving the world was for real heroes. People who made a difference. Not washed-up old men like him. "I leave that to the kids," Gabe halfheartedly replies instead. "Nobody wants to see an old guy like me trying to take the glory. I went through it once-" The vigilante sighs, and Jack has a little moment of surprise with how tired it sounds, "-never again." Gabe glances at the wall on the left, gazing sightlessly at the small cracks that have sprouted from disrepair. 

Gabriel turns past the Reaper, then pauses. He only now realizes that he's had his visor off and pulse rifle out of his hands for that whole exchange. With a sigh, he replaces the tech on his face, and pulls his pulse rifle off its harness. Jack understands, like he always has, and his armor materializes over his body in q black cloud. "Good to see you're still a cornfed son of a bitch!" Gabe calls over his shoulder. Jack huffs as he straps the mask back into place. "Good to see you're still an insufferable bastard," he mutters.

For now they part, unscathed. The memories are too fresh for either of them to care about fighting.


End file.
